AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : Melges Finds Some Peace In the Water : Sailing: Only the America’s Cup has eluded the veteran sailor in his storied career.

For Harry (Buddy) Melges Sr., stepping onto a sailboat--any sailboat, small or large, on water or ice--is like slipping on an old, cozy slipper.

Give him a few minutes and he’ll be as comfortable as if he has been sailing it for years.

Heck, Buddy Melges is an old slipper. Amid the uptight paranoia of the America’s Cup, he’s a down-to-earth reminder that, after all, it is only a sailboat race.

Melges might seem out of place in Bill Koch’s high-tech, high-anxiety America 3c,8.5syndicate. But laid-back? Hardly. Melges’ list of championships would fill the space allotted for this account of a visit with him this week, on the eve of the defender trials starting against Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes Saturday.

The biggest ones were an Olympic gold medal in a Soling at Kiel, Germany, in 1972 and successive championships in the prestigious Star class in 1978 and 1979. Back home in Zenda, Wis., he has won so many iceboat and scow titles that Lake Geneva should be renamed in his honor.

At 62, U.S. Yachtsman of the Year three times, there isn’t much more he can win.

Except an America’s Cup.

Q: What about the stress level of this event compared to others you’ve been in over the years?

Melges: This is a lot easier for me. I don’t have any pressure about fund-raising (or) administration. I’m a free-lancer. On the boat, David Dellenbaugh is doing the pre-start. I miss not being able to do that, but when I take over the wheel I’m taking it in kind of a relaxed state.

Q: All four helmsmen left in the event--you, Dennis Conner, New Zealand’s Rod Davis and Il Moro di Venezia’s Paul Cayard--are Americans--or, in the case of Davis, part Americans. Is that significant?

Melges: Obviously, the sailing we do in this country has been at the highest level. It tells me also about our technology. Certainly, in this organization the technology has been awesome to me. Jerry Milgram, Heiner Meldner, Reichel-Pugh, Doug Peterson. They’ve done assessments of what this and that will do if you do this . . . and they’ve been spot on. I think some of it is because of the super-velocity prediction program Bill Koch put together when he designed Matador2. It wasn’t throwing darts or doing it on a napkin.

Q: But that can’t pick out a wind shift or tell you which side of the course is favored.

Melges: The seat-of-the-pants stuff out here is critical. We find out what’s happening with the wind and the current all over the race course. Now you plug that in and when the race starts you have to watch the changing conditions. And I’ll tell you what, wind up and down here is Lake Geneva, where I grew up. We didn’t have all the fancy instrumentation, but even if you did, until you got something that can shoot a mile in front of the boat, all of the instrumentation only reacts when it’s upon the boat.

Q: What do you look for?

Melges: I watch the air coming down . . .

Q: But you can’t see “air.”

Melges: Wind on the water is air to me. You have to study it. Everybody adjusts very well going into increased velocity. The guys that win races are the guys that adjust best going into the holes. We’re trying to get our people to get their heads out of the boat, up in front of the shifts so they present it for Mother Nature when she arrives on the scene. That’s seat-of-the-pants sailing. And it’s also being able to sail at the (best) angle of heel without locking into on (performance readout) numbers, to bring in a wider horizon of what’s happening on the race course, the shape of the sails and how the boat feels.

Q: How do you “feel” a boat’s performance?

Melges: It’s a whole aura that’s around you. You ask Michael Jordan how he knows he can get through three or four defense guys and do a twisting slam dunk and he can’t tell you. He just does it. The four (skippers) you’re talking about, they’re all very good seat-of-the-pants sailors.

Q: They’re all past or present Star sailors . . . world champions, except for Davis, who just started.

Melges: There’s a lot more to it than just raw boat speed these days.

Q: So after all the discussion about who’s steering the boat the past few months, it is important, isn’t it?

Melges: Yeah. But I’ll tell you what. You put Bill Koch at the wheel in anything over 10 knots of wind in these boats, and it’s fairly steady, he’ll get you sweet numbers and maintain ‘em.

Q: But you ignore the numbers sometimes.

Melges: I watch the velocity of the wind I see on the water and try to relate that to the attitude the boat ought to be and where the crew ought to be on the boat.

Q: You had some good helmsmen here . . . Gary Jobson, John Kostecki.

Melges: Jobson wanted to be a starting helmsman and tactician. That was his role in ’86 when he was with me (in the Heart of America campaign) for awhile.

Q: They left America 3 and you stayed.

Melges: I was in the hospital (for back surgery) when Gary left and was certainly a supporter of Gary’s at the time. Gary’s recommendation to Bill Koch was one of the big reasons I joined with Bill. Gary left because of a set policy that he thought was necessary to get the most out of the time remaining, and that was to choose an afterguard and not rotate, and choose a crew as well. That wasn’t in Bill’s game plan. His system has worked. John Kostecki wanted his role designated. My role has never been designated, outside of the fact that I’m a helmsman. Actually, I negotiated with Bill to have John come back for a couple of more days to see if we couldn’t make amends and get him back on the team, because he’s another tremendous talent. I wanted to be pushed the hardest. If one of these young bucks could do a better job than I could, fine, let ‘em have the helm, and I’d do the best job I could in bringing them along. Kimo Worthington has that same kind of mind-set . . . very quick to go any place. He’s been a spiritual leader to those guys that haven’t been able to sail.

Q: Recently there was a week with a lot of uncertainty and surprising changes in the lineup.

Melges: I wanted Kimo to get some time (at the helm). He did an excellent job.

Q: A few days later a rumor circulated that you had resigned from the team.

Melges: None of that was in my mind. I got a charge out of it.

Q: Then things seemed to settle down, almost as if there had been an ultimatum . . . perhaps from you to Bill?

Melges: Not at all. Everybody thought (that) because I wasn’t at a couple of press conferences. We wanted to let the other kids have some fun with you guys. There are a lot of people in this organization. We went to (a team party at) Miramar (Naval Air Station) last night. I met more new people again.

Q: Has it been all fun?

Melges: Gloria and I have been in our house on Point Loma for exactly one year yesterday. It’s been a good year. It really has. I like these kind of programs. We’re with a new kind of boat. You can create some stuff. We did things on the Flying Dutchman that they still have on the boat. I completely re-rigged the Soling in ‘69, and they’re virtually the same now. The center console, the rig on the spar, the self-tacking jib. That all came from Zenda. On the Star, we changed the structure. We put trusses in that made the boat sail through those choppy waters in San Francisco. It was a breeze. We sailed away. That was fun, because two nights before that regatta Dennis (Conner) told me he was gonna win something like five Star championships in a row. We smoked him winning the first three races with a 106-boat fleet.

Q: This event has evolved the last few months into Big Bad Bill and Poor Little Dennis.

Melges: The remark was made around here that Bill Koch has done in two months for Dennis what he’s been trying to do for himself for 20 years . . . made him a hero.

Q: You’re on his turf, though.

Melges: No question. I’m not sure the people of San Diego really realize the value of Bill Koch if they want to retain this Cup. If Bill Koch hadn’t been here and Dennis had his one boat, it would be a laugher and an embarrassment to American technology. Dennis said he would use the trials to bring his crew up to speed, which he did.

Q: How competitive is he with you now?

Melges: Dennis’ window of excellence is 5 to 7 1/2 knots (of wind). When we get into 8, our boats are starting to perform. When we get into 10, some of the things that we’ve done to him coming from behind are awesome . . . a joke--10 degrees higher and making bearings on him all the time.

Q: How much of this are you doing for sport and how much for money?

Melges (laughing): I would say it’s for the sport. I’m compensated. My house, a car. It’s right there with the oldest house on Point Loma . . . Homer Peabody. Our house is the lumber from the stables that date to 1897.

Q: Nobody but you is in position win an Olympic gold medal and an America’s Cup as a helmsman. Do you think about career achievements at this point in your life?

Melges: Challenges, yeah. I went down to Australia (with the Heart of America campaign in 1986) with the thought of a challenge, and that was a lot of fun. We were a small family and I was the patriarch. We didn’t have that killer instinct because we didn’t have the dollars to be serious about it.

Q: What has been the fun part?

Melges: Innovation. When we have a design team of 40 people here that covers everything--engineering, electronics, cameras at the top of the mast that are as big as your little finger but can see a gnat out there. The new (sail) material we’ve developed in-house has been really impressive. Bill’s total involvement and total dedication is another thing. I came onto this with the idea that if he’s gonna put up all his dough to give me an opportunity to sail in the America’s Cup, I’ve gotta do everything I can to help him become a sailor good enough to identify the situation. He’s remarked that in the light air he doesn’t feel comfortable. But when it’s 10-plus, he drives the hell out of the boat.

Q: So he has improved, but he also has learned his limitations. In the sailoff against Stars & Stripes, he steered the three reaches and started to steer the third upwind leg, but then gave it back to you.

Melges: The puffs were really strange that day. They were coming through and leaving you. A 2-knot puff will alter the course of the boat as much as 15 degrees closer to the wind. Then you run out of that and bam!

Q: Do you think he’s taken some bad raps, then?

Melges: He’s certainly got a lot about wanting to steer--even within the syndicate--’Get off the helm, get off the helm.’ I never did say that.

Q: How does Bill Koch’s high-tech espionage rest with you?

Melges: I don’t think he’s initiated anything new. Dennis did all that. He had Robert Hopkins over in Australia following the competition. The Kiwis had the helicopter flying around Australia, and they’re here with the helicopter. We have helicopters up there . . . the Italians, Dennis does--the little one that looks like it has a sewing machine motor in it. They’ve got boats all over the race course.

Q: Technology, electronics, espionage . . . an old seat-of-the-pants sailor is still comfortable with all that?

Melges: As you get older and see what this is all about, you have to bring as much into your program as you possibly can. Gee, I’ve even read the rules since I’ve been here.